[open-government] Help us build an evidence base on the social impact of open data!

[Julia Keserű]

*** Sorry for the cross-post. ***

Hey everyone,

We need your help!

The Sunlight Foundation is looking for examples on the social impact of
open data and digital transparency projects from around the world. This is
a great opportunity to tell us what open data project you`re working on and
how you think your initiative is making a change to our societies, beyond
economic impact. Our new repository is part of a research project to
explore and analyze the social impact of open data outside the U.S. (More
info in the blog post below.)

Please submit your case story through this link
<https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jP6WIkEPczb8MBn6DNOU2PhKp9Prwe4HokqhUQVsxE0/edit#gid=0>,
or send it to international at sunlightfoundation.com before the end of *Feb.
4*! All you need to do is give a very short description of your project and
how you think it's driving change.

Best and thanks,
Julia


http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2015/01/23/help-us-build-an-evidence-base-on-the-social-impact-of-open-data/

Help us build an evidence base on the social impact of open data!
<http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2015/01/23/help-us-build-an-evidence-base-on-the-social-impact-of-open-data/>
by Júlia Keserű <http://sunlightfoundation.com/team/jkeseru/>

   - policy <http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/policy/>

JAN. 23, 2015, 8 A.M.
[image: open data in Scrabble letters]Photo by Flickr user Justin Grimes
<https://www.flickr.com/photos/notbrucelee/8016200072>

Talking about the economic benefit of open data is one good way to describe
open data’s impact, and provides a "great rationale
<http://www.techrepublic.com/article/more-than-economics-the-social-impact-of-open-data/>"
for
the release of relevant data sets. However, open data’s impact does not lie
solely in the economic sphere. Government openness may produce tremendous
other benefits for our societies: increasing state or institutional
responsiveness, reducing levels of corruption and clientelism, building new
democratic spaces for citizens, empowering local and disadvantaged voices,
or enhancing service delivery and effective service utilization.

But how effective open data and government transparency actually are at
producing these social benefits is not yet at all evident. At a time when "fake
government openness
<http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2014/10/16/is-ogp-vouching-for-hungary/>"
and
"open-washing
<http://blog.okfn.org/2014/03/10/open-washing-the-difference-between-opening-your-data-and-simply-making-them-available/>"
are
increasingly seen as a risk to the transparency movement’s credibility,
there is burning need for more evidence on how opening up government
information helps us all use resources more “effectively, equitably and
sustainably to meet people’s needs
<https://www.globalintegrity.org/posts/learning-to-open-governance/>.”
Developing indexes and comparative studies on a wide range of topics (e.g.
budgets <http://internationalbudget.org/what-we-do/open-budget-survey/>,
thefreedom
of the web <http://webfoundation.org/projects/the-web-index/>, aid
<http://www.publishwhatyoufund.org/index/>, perceived corruption
<http://www.transparency.org/research/cpi/overview>, etc.) is a crucial
first step, but in order to get more buy-in from our policy-makers and a
critical mass of citizens, we need to look beyond those indexes and find
other ways to analyze the effect of open data on societies.

Much of the existing literature seeking to measure the impact and
effectiveness of transparency and open data accountability initiatives seem
to face
<https://www.ids.ac.uk/files/dmfile/IETASynthesisReportMcGeeGaventaFinal28Oct2010.pdf>
a
common challenge: It is incredibly difficult to come up with definitive,
evidence-based generalizations about how "x" type of initiatives produce
"y" kinds of effects. The field has yet to coalesce around a theory of
change, for one, and there are significant methodological challenges around
comparability and unevenness of evidence.

At Sunlight, we would like to help change that. As a continuation of our
work <https://www.scribd.com/doc/219477511/The-Impacts-of-Open-Data> to
provide examples of how opening up information makes a difference in
communities across the U.S., we want to tackle some of these challenges
through a new research project to explore and analyze the social impact of
open data outside the U.S. Our goal is to build a strong evidence base that
might empower further generalizations and to develop a few potential
theories of change that capture the nuances, complexity and messiness of
this broad agenda. With generous support from the Open Data for Development
<http://www.opengovpartnership.org/blog/jose-alonso/2014/11/26/ogp-open-data-working-group-announces-first-round-recipients-open-data>Research
Fund of the OGP Open Data Working Group, our research aims to identify the
factors that increase the likelihood that open data initiatives will
achieve their stated goals in a particular context. We also seek to
understand why and how these factors lead to success or failure.

As a first step, we are asking you — the community of transparency and open
government advocates, civic hackers, investigative journalists and policy
makers — to provide us with illustrative examples of how open data and
transparency projects are having impact on our societies.

Are you working on an open data project that improves the level of
political participation and citizen engagement? Do you know any tech-based
transparency project that you think might lead to change in social
behavior? Is your transparency initiative aimed at decreasing the
perception of corruption, fraud or waste. Has it led to more investigations
or better investigative journalism? Are you aware of an open data
initiative that improves public service delivery or social policies? From
environmental through educational and public safety to health outcomes,
we're looking for examples — both on the local and national level — that
look beyond the direct economic benefits of open data and illustrate how
government openness produces social benefits.

We realize that the definitions we use here are a bit broad, but our goal
is to encourage everyone working in this field to help us build a strong
evidence base that we can further filter and analyze. So please help us and
submit your case story through this link
<https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jP6WIkEPczb8MBn6DNOU2PhKp9Prwe4HokqhUQVsxE0/edit#gid=0>,
or send it to international at sunlightfoundation.com before the end of Feb.
4! All you need to do is give a very short description of your project and
how you think it's making a change in our societies. Any supporting
documents (theories of change, articles, impact stories) in both your local
language or in English are welcome too.

Access to government information and decision-making processes is a
fundamental democratic principle. Open data and digital transparency are
one important way of achieving that access. Help us make our case even
stronger!

-- 
Júlia Keserű
International Policy Manager

1818 N Street NW, Suite 300
Washington, DC 20036
(1) 202-742-1520 *246

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